- Pacific
Can the might of Bilderberg be worn down by this torrent of testosterone, megaphones and blatantly eaten goji berries?
I handed the goji berries to the cop. "He dropped these." The cop thanked me, tossed the gojis in the trunk, and bustled away his captive amid a cacophony of outrage from the crowds. Moments earlier, the man with the berries had called out to the crowd: "They can't arrest us all! Let's stand together!" Moments later, poignantly, he was grabbed by the police and bundled into the squad car.
It was a silly arrest, really. He wasn't doing anything at all. He was eating goji berries, standing on the edge of the road. Jaysnacking. A token flex of muscle from Fairfax County police. I'm not sure this constitutes a legal defence, but I'm pretty sure that if you're eating a bag of organic goji berries, you're probably not much of a threat to society. As the police pulled away, the bullhorn sirens started up and I walked away from the noise.
There was a little too much testosterone on the sidewalk this afternoon – a few too many megaphones for my liking. But hey, you want to shout about the tyranny of a corrupt transnational banking oligarchy, you go right ahead. I'm not about to tell you to hush. It's horses for courses. Two years ago, a group of Spanish activists sat in silence on the beach and sent a white ring of positive energy up the hill to encircle and cleanse the Bilderberg hotel. Whatever gets the job done.
As I left the crime scene, I met a member of Oathkeepers trotting down from their gazebo to check on the arrest. "We'll be looking at the video evidence," he assures me, puffing past.
The Oathkeepers are a posse of military veterans and retired police officers, who have come to keep an eye on things at Bilderberg 2012. They're an incredibly reassuring presence; tough, avuncular – darn it they just want to make you go up and shake them by the hand and say: "Thank you, sir, for being here." www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/jun/03/bilderberg-2012-real-men-oligarchs
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson